


Go ahead. Call it love

by widovvmakers



Series: Gangsey cliches [3]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Valentine's Day, shy ronan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 12:25:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6005985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/widovvmakers/pseuds/widovvmakers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan wants to make Adam's day better and uses that as an excuse to send a Valentine's Day card</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go ahead. Call it love

Ronan Lynch was sure that he wasn’t that type of guy. Well, almost sure. It didn’t run in their blood, simple as that. He had seen Declan walk around with dozens of girls, but, coincidently, they always seem to stop showing up on the week before Valentine’s Day – if they ever stayed that long. Ronan couldn’t say that he had as many flings as his brother did, but he definitely wasn’t a _valentine_ type of guy. Definitely. Which was why he couldn’t explain what he was doing right now.

_This is fucking stupid_ , he thought to himself while he walked down the hallway, holding a card in his hand so strongly that the edges were being crumbled. He was supposed to be in class, but Ronan was always supposed to be in class. He passed a intersection where he could see two boys kissing each other fiercely, ties loose and messy hair. His throat swallowed dry while he avoided to stop and stare, fastening his footsteps, as if that would make the burning feeling on the bottom of his stomach to pass. It had taken a while for Ronan to allow himself to realize what all that meant. It had taken a while for him to accept it, and he still hasn’t, not completely.

But he didn’t care for girls. He saw Gansey and Adam, and even goddamn Noah look at girls in a different way, an interested spark every once in a while. With Blue’s cousin, Gansey’s eyes almost popped out of his face, even though he won’t ever admit it, and all Ronan could think about was how good Adam’s hair looked against the sun.

_Adam_. That was the biggest question, the biggest secret. At some points, he wasn’t sure if he hated or loved him. He hated how vulnerable he felt whenever he was around him – whenever he _thought_ about him. He couldn’t talk without almost stuttering, his hands were always fidgeting, looking for something to do so he wouldn’t embarrass himself more. His body light up whenever Adam touched him, even if it was a nudge or a push. It was _always_ a nudge or a push, Ronan had never made any moves, and neither did Adam. Late at night, he filled his thoughts. Things as simple as wondering if the heating in his room above the Church is working well enough or if he skipped lunch because it would weight too much on his pocket. Friendly concerns, he tried to convince himself, countless times. Gansey sure worries about the same things. But there were nights when the thoughts that filled him weren’t worries and concerns about Adam’s wellbeing, when his hand travelled to the middle of his legs, when all Ronan could think was his strong accent and dust colored hair and strong cheekbones.

He felt a sour taste in his mouth and stopped on his track, looking at the stupid, _stupid_ valentine card he had in his hand. He made it himself – the thought of buying a pink and red card filled with hearts to Adam didn’t make much sense to him – and it wasn’t much. He had written how important he was to him, how much he liked to be around him, being careful enough to not put the word _friend._ If he was putting it in his locker at Valentine’s Day, sugarcoating it felt useless. He closed his hand around the piece of paper again, before rereading made him change his mind.

He couldn’t remember a time where Adam _wasn’t_ constantly on his mind. When he first met him, his eyes already lingering too much on his face, his inside spelling out attraction while he strongly ignored it. But it was more than that. He didn’t just think Adam was hot. He cared about him, in a way he wasn’t used to. He noticed his deep eye bags, getting worse each week, as if spending one weekend at home made him feel worse than working God knows how many jobs during work days. He noticed how he didn’t stay out until late, he noticed how he counted the cents in the change, he noticed how his skipping classes always matched with new bruises. He wanted to make it better, but he didn’t know how. Gansey was a people’s person, and he could talk to Adam, and even though they fought, Ronan always felt like Gansey understood Adam better than he ever did. It was a strange kind of jealousy. He didn’t want Gansey to _stop_ understanding Adam. He just wanted to understand him the same way he did. Perhaps, most of all, he wanted Adam to understand him too.

He stopped in front of Adam’s locker, trying to even out the paper on his hand so it would fit through the small opening, struggling to do it fast enough so no one would see him. Fast enough so he couldn’t change his mind. Maybe he should have typed it out, he thought, in a last effort of his mind to change what has happening, to make him not embarrass himself, to leave things as they were. If he had, the message would be generic, and it would still make Adam’s day better. Would he still like it when he realized it was him? Would he hope it was Blue’s?

Adam was having a rough week. Ronan didn’t know what was happening and he couldn’t bring himself to ask – if he could just say what he meant without struggling as much as he did with slipping him a note. He seemed like he hadn’t slept in days, and they all knew Cabeswater wasn’t that easy to deal with, but he missed seeing his smile, even if it’s crooked. He loved it so much _especially_ because it was crooked, and he would do anything to bring it back. However, Ronan’s abilities didn’t include making people he care about smile. He was good at disappointing them – he did it so often that he barely felt the sting of it anymore.

The card fell inside the locker and Ronan stood in front of it, staring at the metal door, half expecting something to happen. When the alarm announced the end of the class, he barely had time to move away from his locker, shifting through the crowd of students, pushing a few of them out of the way. He leaned against someone’s locker, looking as casual as he could muster, playing around with the leather bands around his wrists.

Adam walked outside the classroom with dragging feet, tiredness hanging on his shoulder while his bag kept slipping from his shoulder while he kept trying to keep it in place. Sleeping wasn’t something that any of the group were exactly good at, but he knew that Adam’s sleep deprivation was not because of insomnia alone. His walk to the locker seemed to take a million years and Ronan found himself holding his breath without noticing it, anticipation crawling on his skin while Adam opened up the lock. He reached for the books inside his bag without even glancing at it, but when he turned back to place them on the pile his brow furrowed slightly, confusion spreading through his face. He dropped his books on his bag again, looking around, not searching for Ronan, not yet, but seeing that he was, maybe for the first time in Aglionby, included in the list of boys that got valentine notes. His tanned calloused hands reached for the paper and he read them, his mouth moving in silence while he did it.

And then it happened. The smile came slowly, as if the muscles on his face were putting up a struggle, the corners of his mouth going upwards while he was reading, his frown softening. At first, he didn’t show his teeth, but the smile still played on his lips, tempting, daring, while he switched the books, carefully holding the note in his free hand. He shook his head, once, as if he couldn’t believe, his lips finally breaking into a true smile, the gap in between his teeth that his parents probably couldn’t afford braces for looking as beautiful as ever. And then he looked up again, and this time, he was searching for something. He was searching for _him_. Ronan didn’t hesitate to smile back – his snake smile, but nonetheless, still a smile – when he found him.

**Author's Note:**

> another one for the cliche series, this time obviously being valentine's day. it also is a valentine gift to @ pastelrage on tumblr. hope you guys like it and let me know what you think, please! this one was a bit shorter because it was really hard to write this month


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